THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 6, 1996 TAG: 9609060508
SECTION: FINAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: 48 lines
Leaders of the Northeastern Economic Development Partnership have recommended hiring an Ohio fund-raising firm to generate $5 million over five years to help finance the pump-priming panel.
For a $15,000 retainer, Capital Funding Strategies Inc. of Columbus will launch a campaign to raise the money from the private sector, said Jimmy Dixon, chairman of the economic partnership.
Dixon said the executive committee of the Northeast Partnership, at a Wednesday meeting in Hertford, voted to urge the full 17-member economic panel to approve the proposal.
Up to now, the panel has operated with an appropriation of about $1.2 million a year which the General Assembly authorized in 1993. Four other regional economic commissions were created across the state at the same time.
``Technically, that money from the legislature is for advertising and promotional purposes,'' said Rick Watson, executive director of the Northeastern Partnership.
``Whatever we can generate in private funding and pledges can be used for `deal closing,' '' Watson said.
``For instance, if a company wants to relocate in our territory and a county in our region can't afford to provide some special infrastructure to close the deal, we could step in and pay for what's needed if it would help the Northeast,'' Watson said.
In an Aug. 27 letter to Dixon and Watson, Robert A. Radcliff, president of Capital Funding Inc., said his company would initially carry out a ``concept audit'' of the 21 counties served by the Partnership.
``If we come out of the audit and agree that a funding campaign makes sense with a goal of $5 million from the private sector ($1 million annually), your total cost for the campaign will be a little less than 5 1/2 percent of the goal,'' Radcliff's letter said. That would be about $275,000.
Radcliff said the ``concept audit'' involved extensive research designed to determine attitudes of business leaders toward supporting the work of the Economic Partnership.
Both Dixon and Watson have said at recent meetings of the full Economic Partnership that some effort by the pump-primers to generate private funding would be politically expedient.
In the General Assembly, budget experts said sustaining funds for the economic partnerships have to be re-appropriated at each new session.
``This is generally a routine process but if a member of either chamber decides to block a funding bill, that's easy, too,'' said a spokesman in the budget office. by CNB